All the King's Men
by quinnthelionheartedgirl
Summary: As one of the most promising tech specialists in the Alliance Navy, but most definitely not one of its' most promising soldiers, Specialist Samantha Traynor struggles to find her place amongst a crew of the best soldiers the galaxy has to offer... and to figure out where she stands with one living legend, Commander Shepard. Femshep/Traynor, plus tons of crew friendship dynamics.
1. Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land

"Oooh, come on Traynor, don't be like that!" Joker whined through the comm. Samantha rolled her eyes and immediately regretted doing so as her stomach lurched. _Deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. You're fine. No dry heaving over the command console of the galaxy map. That's just unprofessional. _

"No, Joker," she answered, trying to focus on the installation protocols flashing across her omni tool through her pounding migraine. The aspirin was taking its' sweet time kicking in.

"Just come up here!" he pressed.

"I said no, Joker!" she snapped, wondering how he was so chipper when just eight hours ago she had been explaining to the cab driver where to take him because he was too drunk to remember his apartment building address. Joker may be the best pilot in the Alliance Navy, but his navigation skills tended to fail him after the fourth or fifth jager bomb.

"Samanthaaaa," he whined.

"Jeffreeeeeey," Samantha whined back, lifting her eyes to glare towards the Normandy cockpit. She could see that Joker had spun his chair around to face her at the galaxy map. He waved enthusiastically, and Samantha returned his greeting by flipping him the bird with both fingers. Snapping her gaze back to her omni tool, Samantha reviewed the retrofitting schedule for the day; she had ten new tech protocols, four new firewalls, and three navigation programs to install into the CIC central control, and several hundred feet of cable to run for each work station on the command deck. What she had was an impossible workload to finish.

What she did _not_ have was the time or the patience for Joker's bullshit.

"If you don't come up here I'm gonna come over there. Then you're gonna have to watch me hobble all the way up to the galaxy map, and then you're gonna feel guilty for the rest of the day for not using your perfectly functioning legs to walk up to the cockpit and help me make a simple choice. And then I'll get EDI to call you a jerk."

Samantha grasped for the mute button on her console, finally hitting it on the third try. A satisfied smile crept across her face, but it disappeared into a scowl a moment later when Joker's voice echoed down the hallway from the cockpit.

"I WILL NOT BE SILENCED, TRAYNOR. NOT UNTIL YOU COME UP HERE AND HELP ME!"

"Sam, just see what he wants. You know he's not going to let it go," Campbell sighed from her post at the security checkpoint.

"Mr. Moreau has been recorded to not relent in pursuit of an inquiry no less than 83.4% of the time. Sergeant Campbell's assertion is a statistically likely scenario," EDI chimed in, and Sam rubbed her temples in frustration. _Bloody hell._ _Even the ship is on his side. The world is clearly conspiring against me today._

"THANK YOU, EDI!" Joker shouted. "SEE TRAYNOR? YOU CAN'T ARGUE WITH NUMBERS. OR ON-BOARD VIRTUAL INTELLIGENCES. SO MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST COME HELP ME BEFORE THE REST OF THE CREW DRAGS YOU UP HERE TO SHUT ME UP."

"Or for fuck's sake," Samantha hissed through her teeth, throwing down a data pad onto the dashboard of the galaxy map. She marched up to the cockpit, stopping just short of Joker's pilot chair. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest to help her resist the urge to break both of Joker's thumbs. He wasn't usually this obnoxious, was he? Was it her bad mood that was making him more irritating? Or was his irritating nature making her bad mood worse?

_It's probably a little of both,_ Traynor thought to herself as she tried to keep her temper in check. _That, or the fact that I'm running on five hours of sleep and the mother of all hangovers._

"Alright, what is it?" she said, trying to sound as annoyed as possible.

"Here, look at these. I need to pick which one to put in my locker this year," Joker grinned, pointing to a vid screen to the left of the pilot's chair. Sam turned to looked and immediately rolled her eyes at the display.

"You made me walk up here to ask me which soft-core porn calendar you should hang in your locker this year?" she scoffed. "There wasn't another male onboard the ship that might be a better person to bounce that question off of?"

"Actually, no, there isn't: the only other dude on the ship right now is Cortez, and we both know he doesn't have a horse in this race. And since I've grown to consider you a good friend and excellent wingman material, I value your input on this incredibly important decision."

"Being your wingman is the reason why I'm one quick head-turn away from throwing up all over this cockpit," Sam growled, rubbing her forehead with her fingers, but Joker's assertion that they were friends softened her mood a little. He was right; they had become good friends over the course of the Normandy retrofit project, and she was very grateful to have someone to hang out with after work. Samantha was always a little awkward around strangers; she had a hard time meeting people, and she was a long way from home. She took extreme comfort in familiarity, and earth was anything but familiar after living most of her life on foreign worlds. At her previous post she was surrounded by fellow tech specialists and scientists, but the Normandy was a military project; while she had done her time in active duty, she still felt out of place on a warship. Fortunately, Joker shared her plight of narrow interests; he was a pilot, and he didn't give a rat's ass about anything else. She was a comms specialist, and had no interest in anything but communication science. They bonded over their mutual disinterest in the 'military' aspect of the military project. That, and a mutual love of booze-fueled video game marathons and going to clubs but refusing to dance. The current shared interest that Joker was invoking was not something she was inclined to discuss at the moment, however.

"How is choosing a calendar an incredibly important decision?" she finally said, glancing back down at her omni tool to check on the progress of her algorithm install.

_Damn, it's already finished. How the hell is this ship VI so efficient at multi-tasking? Guess Cerberus can build one hell of a VI to go with one hell of a ship. Still… it's a little too good at its' job. Maybe I'll spend some time poking around in the VI core tomorrow to see how this thing is so powerful._

"Because it's a year long commitment, Sam! What if I make the wrong choice? Nobody buys a calendar in the middle of the year!"

"Why do you need a paper calendar anyway? You've got an omni tool with a connection to the extranet; you've literally got all of mankind's naked bottoms at the tip of your fingers."

"Phrasing."

"Oh piss off."

"Hey, you've got an unfair advantage here; if we crash on some uncharted world without extranet connection, and _you _wanna see a see a beautiful naked lady, you just have to find a reflective surface. With my luck I'll be staring at Cortez and Vega flex at each other until we all die of starvation. And that's not how I wanna go out. Hey, technically you'd be in the same boat there; one sensitive gay man, one hulking brute, and the gallant stallion you see before you will be all the eye candy you'll have. Is that how you wanna go out? 'Cuz I don't."

Sam had to stifle a laugh, but the effort of holding it in made her stomach lurch and she let out a strained chuckle. _God damn it, now he's got me. Oh God, why didn't I stop before the jager bombs? Standing up to peer pressure was never one of my strong suits… _She mulled over Joker's ridiculous pitch, and concluded that while his premise was utterly insane, his conclusion was most definitely valid.

"Alright, fine. In the incredibly unlikely circumstance-"

"The odds of this particular circumstance are-"

"Not now EDI!" Sam snapped. She longed to be back in the lab without The Overlord interjecting 'useful' information every five minutes. "In the unlikely circumstance that you and I are stranded on a distant world with no access to extranet porn…" Sam studied the two calendars, flipping through each month's photos on the touch screen. "Number two. Definitely number two."

"What? Are you sure, I mean… the tits on March and June in number one…"

"They're fake."

"What!? No. How can you tell?"

"See, they're lying down, and when a woman lays down, her breasts should react to gravity… that is, flatten, or move towards her armpits. Depending on the age, obviously. March and June are standing at attention-"

"They've certainly got me standing at attention."

_Sigh._

"There's just something weird about them. Look, see?" Sam gestured towards the half naked woman in the photo. "Just look at it for a few seconds. Doesn't it look kind of off to you?"

Joker paused for several moments as he examined the photos, and Sam felt a smile creep across her face as she saw Joker's expression change from excited interest to befuddlement.

"Well I'll be damned. You're right. Good call, Traynor. That's why I like you; attention to detail. How the hell do you know that, though?"

"Ah, you would be bewildered by that, seeing as how that sort of knowledge is only gained by real-life study of the subject matter," Sam mused as a wry smile crept across her face.

"Aww, was that a joke at my expense, Sammy? You must be feeling a little better," Joker laughed. "Hey, sorry about suggesting the jager bombs."

_Ugh._

"You're not sorry and we both know it."

"Well, I'm a little bit sorry. You got someone to take you home. I spent a half hour outside my apartment door trying to fit my omni tool in the lock. She was hot, though. What was her name again?"

_Katherine…? Caitlyn…? Katie…? K… K… It was a K… Wow, Sam. Dad always warned me about boys who only want one thing, I wonder how he would react if he found out that I turned INTO one of those boys? Less than eight hours ago that woman was scratching her fingernails down your back while making loud and enthusiastic appeals to a higher power; the least you could do is remember her name._

"Kathleen," Sam finally said, smirking lecherously at the memory of where the woman's head had been earlier that morning. "And yes, she was very attractive."

"What is it with you and redheads, anyway?"

"I like them fiery," Sam joked. "Opposites attract, after all."

"True, you definitely have that 'damsel in distress' vibe going. All vulnerable and feminine. Bet you're a total top in the sack, though."

"Oh, Jeff: jealousy is not a good look for you."

"Hey! I got my own special kind of vulnerable going on. The kind that means I don't have to fetch my own post-sex snack," Joker laughed, and Sam couldn't help but join in. The laughter began to grow to the point of hysterics when Sam became aware of a third person standing in the cockpit with them.

"You're both shameless," Cortez sighed, handing a data pad to Sam. "Like a couple of frat boys, seriously. Here's the comm data for the Kodiak, Specialist Traynor. Since I didn't spend my evening trolling nightclubs with you two horn dogs, I managed to get some work done under schedule."

"I hope that's not judgement I hear in your voice, Cortez. I'll have you know that I feel no shame about my resemblance to a horn dog frat boy," Joker teased. Cortez cracked a smile and shook his head.

"It's like you two are allergic to commitment."

"I'll have you know that I am perfectly capable of commitment. At the moment I'm committed to my hunt for the perfect woman," Sam responded, placing her hands on her hips and raising her chin defiantly.

"Which she will conduct by fucking her way through the candidates- OW!" Sam smacked Joker in the back of the head with the data pad.

"Shut up, jackass."

"Well, I'll leave you two…" Cortez began, and trailed off when he noticed the vid screen with the calendar catalogue still displayed on it. "… to finish your shopping. The lighting is better in number two. I'll be back later to help set up the shuttle bay comms, Traynor." He turned and headed back towards the elevator, shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

"He's alright," Joker said, punching a few buttons on the flight console. "Wish he'd let loose once in a while, though."

"Yea," Samantha agreed, looking over the comm data. "This is good, I can have the Kodiak hooked up to the comm network safely and securely within an hour." _One less thing to worry about before inspection._

"I don't see what all the rush is, it's not like we're going anywhere. We're dry-docked for another couple of months, at least."

"Then why do you insist on being here so often? Other than to make my life hell?"

"Someone's gotta keep the seat warm for me. Unless… do you think Alliance brass could commission a beautiful, naked woman to be my seat-warmer?"

Sam punched Joker in the shoulder, and he winced dramatically before shoving her back.

"Oh, is that how we're gonna play it?" Sam laughed and went to shove him again, but found herself face first on the floor as the ship took a sudden and heavy lurch to the left. The screeching and grinding of metal drowned out the shouts of surprise over the comms from the other crew members aboard, and as Sam pushed herself up from the floor, she tasted copper on her lip. Joker had caught himself on the armrests of of the pilot's chair, but still narrowly avoided slamming his face into the port-side flight monitor.

"Holy shit, what was that?!" Joker shouted, frantically pounding away at the flight console to pull up the ship diagnostics. Sam held her hand to her face and determined that she had cut her lip in the fall, but she was otherwise unharmed. While Joker examined the environment diagnostics, Sam brought up the kinetic barrier readings on her omni tool.

"EDI!" Joker and Sam shouted at the same time.

"I have begun system diagnostics and troubleshooting protocols. The ship has broken free of its' docking brackets, but there is no damage to the hull. It appears that this hangar has been hit with the aftershock of a powerful explosion. I am unable to determine the source of the impact at this time. One moment."

The ship took another violent lurch, but fortunately Sam was bracing herself on Joker's chair this time. She held her omni tool up to one of the vid screens, bringing up all available emergency channels. A thousand tiny images fanned out across the screen, then simplified themselves into four of the closest vid feeds available. As the interference began to clear, frantic cries of panic and explosions blared out of the speakers, and reporters frantically tried to explain what was going on around them.

"The dock is under attack, and the building is taking direct enemy fire. Evacuation of the hangar is recommended."

The comm on the flight console flicked on, but there was too much static to make out the speaker's face. Sam ran her omni tool over the feed to identify the IP signal; ADMIRAL HACKETT, STEVEN. ALLIANCE COMMAND.

_That's not good._

"What the hell is going on?!" Joker demanded, and Sam felt a jolt of fear shoot through her stomach at his lack of professionalism. _For fuck's sake, Joker, it's only the fucking commander of the entire Alliance fleet! _Fortunately his frankness didn't seem to register a reaction from the admiral. As Hackett began to speak, the interference suddenly got significantly worse, and the static was so bad that only a few words were discernible..

"Earth… under attack… heavy casualties… do not engage… enemy is… need pick up… find Commander… need …"

"Who the hell would attack earth? The batarians? Their star systems have been going dark over the past couple of weeks. Were they just prepping for a massive invasion?" Samantha wondered out loud, trying to stop herself from panicking. If the batarians were invading, then they would have hit the colony worlds first… which means Horizon…

_Oh God._

Joker was oddly silent as his fingers deftly danced across the flight controls. He was scanning over an email on his omni tool, which also appeared to be from the admiral; he must have sent it as an attempt to circumvent the massive amount of interference on the vid comm link. After a few moments, Joker shut off his omni tool and returned to frantically pounding on the flight controls.

"Joker-!?" Sam started, but was cut off by the sound of the engines firing up and the mass effect core engaging.

"Sam, I need you to search the comm channels for these IP signals. We need to get to them as quickly as possible for extraction," Joker ordered, his voice strangely hollow and distant.

"What? You're taking off NOW? We've only got ten crew members on board! Can we even fly this thing with a skeleton crew?!"

"No time to explain or argue! Find those IP signals!" Joker snapped, and Sam slid into the co-pilot chair. She took a second to strap herself in, then plugged her omni tool into the console in front of her. Millions of IPs went flying across the screen; every emergency channel was at maximum data load, and the transfer speed had slowed to a trickle for any given message. Trying to push the reality of what was happening out of her mind, she settled into what she did best; finding digital needles in digital haystacks.

"EDI, can you help me find these IP signals?" she had caught onto one of the IPs for a few moments, but lost it again as the Normandy left the hangar.

"I am sorry Specialist Traynor, but most of my systems are currently devoted to piloting the ship in the absence of a full crew."

"Since when can a VI assist in flying a frigate?!"

"Long story! I'll tell you later!" Joker interjected. "Find those signals, I need a destination!" Sam wrestled with the connection timeouts and transfer speed, frantically trying each of her search algorithms when one failed to provide a location or a viable signal. In an effort to make the process go faster, she narrowed her search to just two IPs at a time.

"I have received the location of Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams and Lieutenant James Vega. Creating navigation point," EDI stated. Success!

"EDI, I need you to ping one of their communicators. I'll use every bypass protocol I have available to keep the channel open, but I can't do that while also trying to hail them," Samantha commanded, feeling oddly out of place. She wasn't' the type to give orders; only to follow them.

"Pinging… connection failure. Pinging… connection failure. Pinging… connection success. Error: signal timeout. Pinging…"

_Come on, come on… this is why I asked for those new signal insulation protocols, damn it. Come on, EDI, you can do it._

"Connection success. Communication link established. Signal strength is-"

"Thank you that's all I need to know, EDI!" Sam shouted, pulling up the comm link on her omni tool. Static hissed and growled out of the speaker, punctuated by gunfire and deafening explosions.

"-tenant Commander Williams to Normandy! Come in Normandy!" Lieutenant Commander William's voice finally broke through the interference.

"Lieutenant Commander Williams this is SSV Normandy. We are en route to your location for extraction, sending rendezvous nav point. " Samantha answered, still struggling with the signal insulators and the search protocols running on the console in front of her.

"Copy that, Normandy. Lieutenant Vega is with me, as well as three more of your flight crew. What's the status of Admiral Anderson and Commander Shepard?"

_Shepard? THE Commander Shepard? But she was discharged from active duty..._

_What the FUCK is going on?_

"We are unable to pinpoint their location," Sam answered, combating panic with professionalism. The console in front of her lit up like a Christmas tree as they passed over the main operational center of the Alliance Military Headquarters; Sam let out an exasperated sigh, but it was quickly followed by a cry of victory when COMMANDER SHEPARD, QUINN E. N7 OPERATIVE and ADMIRAL ANDERSON, DAVID. ALLIANCE COMMAND popped up in the signal cluster. She caught them just before they disappeared back into the insane traffic on the comm channels, and was able to lock onto the signals. "We have just located Commander Shepard and Admiral Anderson. They appear to be together, location pending. Do you have the nav point for extraction?"

"Affirmative, Normandy. We'll bunker down until you arri- Jesus! Look out! On your six! Multiple hostil-" the rest was drowned out by what seemed to be gunfire from multiple assault rifles. Sam felt a knot begin to tie itself in her stomach.

"EDI what's our ETA?" Sam inquired, putting all of her focus on staying locked onto Commander Shepard's signal. There was still too much interference to get any clear audio, so she distracted herself from her own growing terror by putting her full attention on making audio contact.

"ETA to Williams' evac point in two minutes," EDI stated. "Hailing Commander Shepard… signal lock successful. Connection success. Communication link established."

"-ave engaged multiple hostiles. Heavy casualties. Requesting immediate evac. Repeat, SSV Normandy, this is Commander Shepard-"

"Shepard this is SSV Normandy, we are currently en route to Lieutentant Commander Williams' location, ETA two minutes. Sending your extraction nav point now, ETA five minutes to extraction," Samantha answered, feeling a brief moment of excited nervousness to be speaking directly to Commander Shepard. Her exhale of relief must have been blatantly obvious, because Joker turned to look at her for the first time since takeoff.

"Hey, you can fangirl on your own time. I need you focused right now," Joker demanded as he began to bring the ship around to the top of a large skyscraper where Williams and Vega were waiting with three members of the flight crew.

"Yes, sir," Samantha confirmed. She sat back in her chair and watched the comm links, ready to spring into action if a signal was lost. However, the brunt of her job was done; she had a moment to breathe. As the Normandy lowered itself into position, Sam took a moment to glance out the window.

That was a mistake.

She let out an audible gasp of shock and dismay, unable to really comprehend what she was seeing. Giant ships shaped like sea creatures from the worst kind of nightmares crawled over smaller buildings like toys, crushing everything in their path. Red eyes lit up with powerful mass effect cannons, firing with the force of a dreadnought's main gun. She fell back into the chair panting, trying to suppress the panic attack that was brewing just below the surface of her conscious mind.

"Are… are those…?"

"Reapers," Joker answered flatly. "Yes. That's them. They're here."

"My God, they're just as big as the Collector ships," Samantha choked out through the tightening sensation in her throat.

"Yea, just about- wait. How did you know that? OH SHIT!" Joker banked the Normandy hard to the left, narrowly avoiding a blast from a Reaper's cannon. Before he could right the ship back onto course, burst fire hit the starboard hull, triggering the kinetic barriers. "Hold on, Ashley! I gotta find a path through the crowd!" Sam kept her eyes on the barrier diagnostics and heat load monitors, afraid that watching things fly by the cockpit windows would give her motion sickness. After one last banking turn, Joker pulled the Normandy up beside the roof of the building. "We're comin' in hot, Ash, get your ass up that gangplank ASAP!" Sam brought up the security feeds from the shuttle bay, and confirmed the identities of all five of the heavily armed soldiers clambering into the belly of the ship.

"Close the damn hatch before the husks get inside!" Ashley yelled back, and the shuttle bay door slammed shut just as the Normandy suddenly accelerated away in the direction of Commander Shepard's signal. Suddenly, the signal winked out; Samantha swore and slammed her fist against the console, and quickly unbuckled herself from the copilot seat.

"Joker, can you keep her steady long enough for me to get into the war room? The signal saturation's too much for the normal comm controls to handle: I need to get to the FTL communicators!" Samantha yelled over the static on the comm, and turned it off once it was clear that it was a lost cause to keep it on.

"Yea but be careful! I can't promise I won't take a hard turn if something starts shooting at us!" Joker answered. Sam didn't need to be told twice; she broke into a sprint to the back of the ship, past the security check, right at the end of the war room, and into the FTL suite. She had to climb over bundles of exposed wires and stray boxes of unfinished installations, silently cursing the fact that aesthetics were made the lowest priority.

"Who cares if its' a tripping hazard, we are the Alliance military and we design our ships to be tech specialist death traps!" Samantha growled to herself in frustration, shoving several boxes off of the FTL comm link. Packing peanuts flew everywhere, and Sam briefly considered what would happen if the artificial gravity suddenly went out.

Another explosion knocked her face-first onto the FTL comm, reopening her bleeding lip. Samantha swore and swore, bracing herself against the railing of the FTL console. She opened up the FTL link, once again scouring through millions of data packets to isolate the Commander's IP signal. Fortunately, the CIC FTL link was making quick work of scrubbing out extraneous signals; Sam could find a needle in a haystack, but the FTL comm could find a needle in a haystack on Horizon from three star clusters away.

Once again Commander Shepard's IP blinked onto screen, as well as Admiral Anderson's. They were a considerable distance away from their last pinged location, but closer to the Normandy than they were before. Still, the FTL was struggling to keep the lock in real-time; Sam noticed the nav points jumping forward at irregular intervals.

"SSV Normandy, this is Admiral Anderson, do you copy?"

"This is SSV Normandy, we're experiencing signal lag, and we're having a hard time maintaining a nag point, sir," Samantha answered, suddenly remembering protocol.

"We're next to a downed fighter, activating the distress signal. Sending the IP. Can you see it?"

"Affirmative, Admiral. En route for extraction," Samantha confirmed, carefully watching the comm to make sure it didn't drop the signal. _If you lose the signal… no, don't think about it._

"We're coming, just hold on!" Joker added.

The next few minutes were the most painfully long minutes of Samantha's life. She gripped the hand rail of the comm, desperately trying to get control of her breathing. She wheezed and fumbled with her pocket, pulling out an inhaler. _Thank god I didn't leave it in my other pants._

"The calvary has arrived!" Joker shouted over the comm, and the cargo bay monitors flicked back onto Sam's omni tool. The video feed flicked on just in time for Samantha to see Ashley hauling a female soldier up onto the cargo bay ramp. She squinted at the screen; red hair, tied back in a pony tail...

_Commander Shepard._

She assumed that Shepard would be at a running sprint towards the elevators the second she got onto the ship, but instead she seemed to be arguing with someone on the ground. She saw Shepard's hand dart out to grab something from the air before she walked slowly towards the back of the cargo bay, visibly shaking her head. After a few moments the Normandy began to take off again, and the bay doors closed as the ship began firing up its' FTL drive.

"Oh for fuck's sake-" she barely got the last word out before the vertigo kicked in as the drive core engaged, dropping her to her knees as she desperately tried to stop retching. A moment later, the feeling had subsided, but Sam couldn't find the strength to stand; she just sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to be as small as possible.

"Sam, you alive back there?" Joker asked over the comm, genuine concern lining his voice.

"Yea. At least… I think so," she said softly, pressing her fists to her eyes to stop the tears from falling. There was a long silence that passed, and Sam was suddenly aware of how eerily quiet the comm room was without a full staff; sure there was the usual background humming of tech and the muted sound of the drive core engines, but Samantha had long ago learned to completely drown out those sorts of ambient sounds. Without human voices it was just… empty.

"Hey, um… so… we've received orders to go to the Citadel to appeal to the council for support, but we need to stop at the Mars Archives first."

"Why the Archives?" Sam wondered aloud. "Shouldn't we be getting the hell out of the Sol System?"

"Hackett said they found something big. Something that might give us information on the Reapers."

"A weapon?"

"He said they don't know, just that we're supposed to check in with the science team there before moving on. I was thinking that we could also pick up some additional crew and specialists while we're there; I can't imagine they'll turn down our request, considering the circumstances."

"That sounds like a good plan," Sam agreed, resting her head on her knees.

"So uh, that means you can go find something to do for a little while until we finish up there and hit the relay. You know, keep your mind busy. I know you get anxious when it's too quiet…"

Another awkward silence.

"Thanks, I um… I think I'll head down to the med bay and patch up my face, then maybe try to take a nap. Probably could use some rest."

"Sounds good. You okay Sammy?"

"No," Sam sighed. "but thanks for asking."

-

Alright, so there it is: the start of a brand new piece for me. I've been wanting to write about Mass Effect for quite some time, and I think I've finally nailed down an angle that I'd like to tackle the topic from. The Shepard I will be writing about is more or less the Shepard I played, and I definitely role-played my Commander Shepard, but I didn't want to write it from 'my' point of view. This is my attempt at studying my decisions in the series in a way that lets me be observational and sometimes critical of them; also, The Mockingjay's Call is ridiculously self indulgent in regards to my personality and I wanted to write something that wasn't quite so 'in character' for myself. I'm not going to follow the game's storyline point for point, because I don't think that a re-tread through the whole game is necessary for the character development that I'm trying to accomplish. But, I am going to try my goddamn hardest to stick to canon. This, like The Mockingjay's Call, is subject to 'real life' getting in the way... for which I apologize, but I do enjoy comments/critiques/praise/flames/etc. And the more feedback I get, the more I am willing to neglect my social life/sleep schedule to keep writing. Anyway... here goes.


	2. Chapter 2: A Hell of a First Impression

"This whole damn ship is a tripping hazard death trap," Campbell growled, stumbling over the exposed cables that littered the path on the crew deck between the elevator and the med bay. Sam let out a rough chuckle in response as she guided her fellow soldier towards the med bay door; Campbell's arm was draped over Sam's shoulders for support, since Campbell had injured her leg during the Normandy's sudden escape. The two limped their way towards the med bay doors, and upon reaching their destination Sam helped Campbell jump up onto one of the medical cots. Campbell stripped off her boot and pulled up her pant leg, revealing a nasty scrape along her shin and two obviously broken toes.

"Hey, it's only a problem if someone gets hurt," Sam quipped dryly, examining her reflection in the med bay windows. Her lip was very visibly split, and blood was dribbling down her chin. _Kind of dashing, I suppose. For once I look like a real soldier and not just a tech geek._ She pulled out a thumb-size medigel pack from a first aid kit and dabbed it onto the cut, instantly feeling relief from the stinging pain. Campbell had pulled out a larger medigel pack from under the cot and had begun applying it to the scrape on her shin and the broken toes. She sighed in relief before beginning to bandage the scrape and brace the broken toes.

"God bless technology," Campbell joked, wriggling her toes as the anesthetic effects of the medigel kicked in. "Just think; the battle of a lifetime, and if it weren't for this sticky goo I'd be stuck here in the med bay with a couple of goddamn broken toes. Wouldn't that be something to write home about?"

"I'm sure it would make a riveting tale," Sam mused, settling down into the med bay doctor's chair. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the tingle of the medigel instead of the panic that was growing in her chest. After several minutes of failing to ignore the situation, Sam began to try to come to terms with it.

_So, Earth has been attacked. _

No reaction.

_The Reapers are real, and they're attacking Earth. _

Still no reaction, which Sam assumed was due to her mind going into shock over the whole situation. Still; shouldn't she feel something? Anything?

_Vancouver is gone._

Nope, nothing.

_London is probably gone, too. And Oxford._

She felt a little twinge, but it was still too broad of a concept for her mind to wrap itself around.

_Mcdonalds. There was a distinct possibility that in the near future there would be no such thing as a Mcdonald's hamburger. Even if they're terrible for you, and that no one seems to genuinely like them..._

That seemed to stir up some sort of emotion.

_Snickers bars. Or Aero bars. Even the gross mint kind. _

_Mint. There is a possibility that the universe will forever lose the flavor known as 'mint.'_

She felt a lurch in her stomach at that thought, and had to open her eyes to stop her mind from spinning. It was unpleasantly like being drunk.

_["What's unpleasant about being drunk?" Arthur asked._

_"You ask a glass of water."]_

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy could be lost to the universe._

_**Dad…**_

Sam clamped her hands over her face as she felt the sudden urge to cry and vomit at the same time. She felt her head slouch forward to her knees as the dizziness kicked in. _Ooooh, tunnel vision. Uuuugh…_

"Hey, hey! Traynor! It's gonna be okay, we got this," Campbell asserted. "Don't bitch out on me now, you're tougher than this."

"Am I?" Sam groaned, rubbing her temples with her fingers. She felt the bile creep up her throat but she suppressed it with several gulps of air and sheer force of will.

_I'm not a soldier. I mean, I am… I did my time in training. I went to boot camp with the rest of the grunts. I did pushups in the sun while shouting a hearty 'Ooh rah!' to the drill sergeant in his smokey bear hat. I got excellent marks on fitness and discipline. Hell, I even have expert marksman badges on my Dress Blues. Expert shooter. What a laugh. On a shooting range, yea… but what happens when the targets are shooting back? Could I pull the trigger then?_

"Damn straight, Traynor. You're a Marine. An Alliance soldier," Campbell asserted, appropriately answering the unvoiced question in Sam's mind.

_What does it mean? To be a marine? An Alliance soldier? I don't fucking know. I play with computers all day._

"Move, move, MOVE!" Sam jumped out of her seat as a group of heavily armed soldiers stumbled through the med bay doors. Campbell jumped off the medical cot and hobbled her way towards Sam, who quickly offered a shoulder to her still wounded comrade. The two hobbled their way out of the med bay into the dining commons, where Sam helped Campbell ease her way into one of the chairs at the main table. Unable to quench her curiosity, Sam cautiously edged her way to the hallway leading into the med bay, examining the sight at hand. What she saw was at best organized chaos; a body was thrown down onto the medical cot, and an asari in a lab coat was frantically running her omni tool over it. Medical diagnostics flowed across the screen, beeping frantically to signal the critical condition of the soldier being scanned. It took several moments for Sam to recognize the soldier lying motionless on the cot. The face was so bruised and damaged, Sam could hardly recognize it as the face of the Lieutenant Commander she had met only hours before.

"Ashley needs medical attention!" the asari stated with heavy concern in her voice. The woman she was addressing was still wearing her breather helmet, and her armor was almost completely black, including the N7 insignia on the chest plate. The only hint of color was the red stripe running down the right arm, but it was closer to the color of blood than the bright cherry red that was standard for officer markings on N7 armor. In fact, the stripe was so close to black in color, it might as well have been for how unrecognizable it would be at a quick glance during a firefight. The plastic-like shine that was common amongst the N7 armors was also extremely subdued, and light seemed to just disappear into the dull surfaces of the armor plates. Sam's eyes wandered down to the weapon docks on the back of the armor as the woman turned away from the door. _Hmm, no assault rifle. No shotgun. No SMG. Not even a sidearm. Just a sniper rifle? And not a standard issue… looks like a M-97 Viper. And ordinance packs. Lots of ordinance packs… she's an infiltrator? What are the odds of having an infiltrator on the Normandy, there's so few of them in the Alliance…_

Sam realized that she had let her mind wander, and immediately snapped her attention back to the face of the mystery woman, who was finally pulling off her helmet. Once the loose, red ponytail became visible, Sam felt a knot of nervousness clench her stomach, as well as an overwhelming feeling of foolishness for not immediately putting two and two together.

_No, not just any infiltrator. THE Infiltrator, you moron. That's Commander Shepard._

The asari's pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears as the commander examined the body with a chilling sort of professionalism. After a few moments of awkward silence, Sam realized who the asari was; Dr. Liara T'soni. She had seen many mentions of her in the Normandy's archival files. The face was easily recognizable, despite the asari's alien nature to Sam. _I'm pretty sure she's the only asari I've ever seen with eyebrows..._

"Shepard!" Liara pressed, leaning over the medical cot. "We need to leave the Sol System."

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. Sam felt herself shrink against the bulkhead, trying to find a way to slink back to her seat at the dining commons table. The air felt dangerous in a way that she couldn't quite describe, and she was now keenly aware that she was basically spying on her commanding officer. _Damn it Sam, get that curiosity in check before you get yourself killed. Or worse, discharged._

"SHEPARD," Liara repeated, grabbing the Commander by the collar of her armor in a manner that could only be described as dangerously unprofessional. Liara spun Shepard around to face her, and Sam had to suppress the urge to gasp at how terrifying the Commander's glare was. Shepard was clenching her jaw so hard that the tension could be seen in her neck. "We need to leave-"

"I KNOW," Shepard snapped. It seemed like it took all of Shepard's willpower not to slap Liara's hand away. Hell, she seemed to have briefly considered back handing Liara across the face. Instead she jerked out of the asari's grasp, and focused her rage on punching a sizable dent into the interior wall of the med bay. Liara jumped at the sound, but her face didn't visibly waver. However, Sam did notice that the asari's hands were trembling ever so slightly.

_She's probably just as terrified as you, Sam._

Sam watched the asari and the commander stare each other down, feeling every second slowly inch by. Shepard's fury was so powerful it was almost choking the air around her. Suddenly Liara grabbed Shepard's arm again, pulling the commander towards her with a sort of bravery that felt almost suicidal.

"We have to go to the council. Now," she stated, and only a slight waver in her voice betrayed the fact that she was just as afraid as the rest of the soldiers in the immediate vicinity. Shepard stared at her coldly, once again shaking off her grip.

"Fine," Shepard spat, storming towards the elevator. Sam felt herself immediately slam to attention along with the rest of the soldiers on deck, but their salutes and presence were not acknowledged. Shepard paused for a moment to punch another sizable dent into the mess hall bulkhead before disappearing into the elevator. Another awkward silence settled into the crew deck, and it took several minutes for anyone to bring themselves to start moving back towards their posts.

_No wonder Shepard is famous for her temper…_

"'scuse me, miss," Lieutenant Vega grunted as he brushed by Sam and into the Med Bay, which snapped Sam out of her thoughts once again. Over his shoulder he had what appeared to be a severely damaged mech.

"Please tell me that's not a geth," Sam breathed. Vega shook his head and dropped the thing onto the workbench in the VI core with a loud bang; it was heavier than it looked, clearly.

"That would probably be less dangerous than what we've got here," he groaned, cracking his neck and back.

"So… you're putting it in the VI core? You know, next to the ship VI's main processors and servers…?"

"The SSV Normandy SR-2 is sufficiently protected against all manner of hacking protocols," EDI chimed in pleasantly. "The statistical likelihood of this device being successful in a hacking attempt is extremely low."

"Guess there's nothing to worry about then," Vega shrugged. "But uh, you might wanna keep an eye on it anyway, specialist."

"Aye, aye lieutenant," Sam answered.

"T'soni," Shepard's voice rang out over the Normandy's PA system. Both Sam and Liara jumped, but Liara hid her surprise considerably better than Traynor did. "See what you can learn from that… that **thing**." Her anger was frightening even without her physical presence.

"Aye, aye, Commander," Liara confirmed with a hint of anger in her voice. She turned to Sam. "You there. Can you give me a hand?" Sam nodded and they both walked over to the mech, examining the charred husk with suspicion and curiosity. After a few quick scans with her omni tool, Sam determined that it was Cerberus made.

"Cerberus… what were they doing on Mars?" Sam wondered aloud.

"The same thing the Alliance was doing; looking for this," Liara said softly, bringing up what appeared to be a blueprint on her omni tool. There was something oddly calming and gentle about Liara's voice, even when she was shouting at her commanding officer. Sam stared at the hologram for a few moments, but was unable to determine what it was or what it did, other than the fact that it was clearly Prothean in design.

"Isn't that classified information?"

"You're the comms specialist, aren't you? Unless you borrowed someone else's rank pins…"

"Yes, I am _a_ comms specialist but-"

"So you control all the information coming and going on this ship, and you maintain the FTL communicator. Technically, nothing is classified to you, since monitoring the data would be difficult if you couldn't actually hear or read what you were trying to clean up."

"That is… a good point, I suppose. But not everything is available to me unencrypted. Some files are encoded to only respond to a commanding officer's IP tag; all I see or hear is gibberish, but it comes out as plain english to them."

"I'm sure that once we dock at the Citadel and you check in with the Alliance Headquarters, you'll get the necessary security clearance."

"Doubtful. I'm not even technically assigned to this ship," Sam paused for a moment, rolling that thought around in her head. _That's right; all of us were just here for the retrofits. A new crew was supposed to take over when the Normandy was released from dry dock. Will we be reassigned to the Normandy? Do I even want to be reassigned to the Normandy?_

_It's not about what you want, Traynor. It never is…_

"Then why are you here?" Liara asked. While the question felt a little offensive to Sam, she quickly realized that it was a straightforward inquiry rather than an accusing statement.

_Not everyone questions you as much as you question yourself. Stop being so fucking insecure._

"When the Normandy was dry-docked, I was in charge of installing all the comms retrofits, including the FTL communicator. When Earth was attacked, we didn't have time to wait for a flight crew, so everyone who was on board for the retrofits became the substitute crew. For now, at least," Sam explained matter-of-factly. Liara seemed satisfied with the answer, but the slight tilt of her head and distant demeanor betrayed the fact that the asari was very clearly sizing Samantha up… though she couldn't imagine why.

"I see," Liara said finally, biting her lip absentmindedly. Sam felt a flush of embarrassment when she realized she had been staring at Liara's mouth. _Ugh. Lip biting. That's always been a weakness of mine… and she's undeniably beautiful. Even for an asari. Shame that they don't have hair… or that I can't seem to get over the fact that they don't. I mean, a whole race of gorgeous, sexually liberated women-_

_Stop it. At least try and pretend you're a professional._

"I'm sorry, where are my manners? We haven't been formally introduced. I'm Comms Specialist Samantha Traynor, Alliance R&D."

"Dr. Liara T'soni, University of Thessia researcher and information broker," Liara shook Samantha's hand, and Sam was surprised that the asari's skin felt smooth like her own, despite the visible texture. _Maybe it's like shark scales? Smooth one way, rough the other?_

"You still introduce yourself as a university researcher? You have a tenure or something? Hope you haven't fallen into the 'get a doctorate to get a job teaching other students how to eventually teach their students to be teachers-'" Sam immediately regretted the statement as soon as it came out of her mouth, realizing how ridiculously rude it was. _Goddammit, this is why you need to talk to people other than Joker once in a while._

"Hmm, let me guess; you're one of those engineers with a master's degree that gets really annoyed and insecure when you're asked why you don't have a doctorate?" Liara grinned, and Sam was relieved; it was nice to know that the notoriously clinical Dr. T'soni had a sense of humor.

"Oh, I'm not that sensitive about it. Not nearly as sensitive as most engineers, I'd wager. I had a friend back at uni who went back to school to get his doctorate when he got married because his wife had one, and he couldn't stand all the teasing that went along with being addressed as 'Dr. and Mr. Mclean.' Besides, I could never get used to being addressed as 'Dr. Traynor.' I'd keep looking around for my parents every time someone addressed me."

"What are their disciplines?" Liara inquired, motioning to Sam to help her push the mech onto it's side in order to access the maintenance panels. Even with a slight boost to Liara's strength from her biotics, it took both of them several tries to flip the thing over.

"Dad is into aerospace engineering," Sam answered, prying the mech's maintenance hatch open with a screwdriver when the omni tool failed to disengage the lock. "specifically, the mechanics of FTL flight. Mum is an anthropologist. They're both professors, actually."

"Seems like you had a primarily academic background. So how did you end up in the military?" Liara asked, pulling several of the processors out of the mech.

"I'm not sure how it is in asari culture, but in human culture academia doesn't exactly bring in the big bucks. Especially on a colony world like Horizon," Sam locked the processors into a black box, in case Cerberus had figured out how to incorporate the geth's self-repair protocols into their devices. _Safety first, everyone. _"The Alliance offered me a full scholarship to Oxford University on earth once they saw my aptitude scores. I served my mandatory years and decided to stay on once I was offered a lab position in R&D. But I never expected to find myself on a warship, let alone the Normandy."

"Well, it is an excellent opportunity to put your skills to proper use. I assume you're one of the best, if you were assigned to retrofit the Normandy."

"Dr. T'soni, are you trying to flatter me?"

"What? No, I was simply… oh, that was sarcasm, wasn't it? Sorry, I don't always catch it. Different body language in humans and all that," Liara laughed, wiggling her arm deeper into the mech's body cavity. Sam had to force herself to not look at the mech's face; it's resemblance to a human being's had plunged it straight into the uncanny valley, and watching Liara grope around inside it's torso was a little unsettling if she let herself think about it for more than a few moments. At the moment, Liara had her arm hooked through the lower torso upwards towards the head, and was almost shoulder-deep in the machine.

"It's rather annoying that the thing doesn't have more access hatches, considering how much tech is crammed inside of it," Sam sighed, prying off another small panel near Liara'a shoulder in an attempt to make it easier for the asari to move her arm.

"Ah, well, if I knew what the outer shell and armor was made out of, I could just strip off the casing, but I don't want to disassemble the entire thing unless it's absolutely necessary," Liara sighed, as if in a moment of introspection. "You know, I never received formal commando or political training. My doctorate is in archeology. If it weren't for that excavation on Therum out in Artemis Tau three years ago, I probably _would_ be teaching more archeologists to be teachers. And yet… here I am, shoulder deep in a combat mech after blowing through an entire battalion of Cerberus soldiers with guns and biotics blazing. Well, maybe not blazing… not at first. But Ashley's not very good at moving quietly. Fortunately Shepard is not afraid to jam the barrel of that sniper rifle right down the enemy's throat…"

"An infiltrator that's also skilled in close quarters combat? Now that's a rare trait indeed. Most prefer to hang out in shadowy corners, preferably hundreds of feet from the enemy."

"You know a lot about N7 classes, don't you? Why is that?" Liara asked cautiously. _Is that suspicion in her voice? What the hell would she have to be suspicious about with me?_

"You remember I said that my original job was a lab position in R&D? Well, it's all declassified now. But at the time, I was working on a highly classified comms project for N7 operatives and Alliance Command. It was the precursor project to the development of the FTL communicator; basically, we originally developed FTL comm technology to be integrated into N7 armor for covert operations, since you can't trace quantum entanglement. The infiltrator class was the first group of N7 operatives to use the technology. So, before I was assigned to install the FTL comm on the Normandy, I was part of the team that developed it. Well, reverse-engineered and improved upon, would be more correct. We stole the basic concepts from the one-to-one FTL comm link that Cerberus had developed for the Normandy. Our job was to make it capable of linking to any comm, not just its' twin."

"And did you succeed?" Liara inquired, yanking her arm out of the mech's torso. In her hand she had the primary HDD.

"Take a walk to the war room when you have a free moment. It's all the way at the back of the CIC floor. Let me know if you want to make a call… you know, in case there's someone you want to contact. Tell them you're safe."

"Thank you, but anyone who I would call is probably too occupied to answer. At the moment, at least. I'll take a look at it as soon as I have some free time to do so."

"Please do, and please tell your fellow researchers over at U of Thessia and U of Serrice how utterly amazing it is. They've been thumbing their noses at us 'neanderthals' down at Oxford, Stanford and MIT for the past decade. It's our turn to rub something in _their_ faces," Sam grinned, carefully prying out the RAM chips from the mech's main processor to scan them for repair protocols and trapped data packets. _Oh! It's not much, but a little bit of combat data got trapped in the RAM when the mech stopped functioning. Might be useful, if it's retrievable._

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day," Liara countered, ripping out some unusually complex circuit boards and data from the mech's torso. "You humans were bound to stumble across something useful eventually."

"Oooh, I'm sure they'll be struggling to stop themselves from turning green with envy."

"You know, I actually knew an asari who turned green."

"From… envy..?"

"No, toxic spore exposure. It's a long story. Not one that can be finished before we reach the Citadel," Liara glanced back over to Ashley, who was being monitored by three field medics. _Good thing we found them hiding in a research bunker on mars before the storm set in…_

"She seems to be stabilizing," Sam said quietly, knowing better than to ask whether or not she was going to make it. _Soldiers die, Traynor. It's part of the job._

"Don't say that too loudly, Shepard might order us to turn the ship around," Liara spat with clear bitterness in her tone.

"I take it you're well acquainted with the commander's… personality quirks?" Sam asked carefully. Liara coughed suddenly, and Sam was certain that she could see a light blush come across Liara's cheeks. _Interesting, the asari blush pink like humans. I was kind of expecting some shade of violet._ The expression of embarrassment was immediately followed by an expression of pain, which caught Sam completely off guard. A very deep sadness seemed to pass behind Liara's eyes for a few moments, but it very quickly transformed into anger and frustration.

_Wow. What the hell was that? Maybe I should go through those dossiers again._

_Damn it Sam, why do you have to be so nosy?_

"She doesn't want to leave the fight, and I understand that," Liara finally said with a strained voice. She seemed to be picking her words very carefully. "...but we need help if we're going to help earth. She's just such a… a…"

"Renegade?" Sam offered.

"Stubborn asshole," Liara growled, her eyebrows furrowing into an expression of frustration. Sam let out a small laugh, and Liara smiled slightly at her reaction. "You won't think it's so funny when you're standing next to her at the Nav map for most of the day."

"I told you, I'm not even assigned to the Normandy. They had a different crew lined up for when the ship was returned to active service."

"And where was that crew stationed?"

"On earth- oh," Sam bit her lip and closed her eyes, pushing the thought out of her mind.

"This ship isn't exactly a stranger to ragtag crews. It's more like a pirate ship than a military vessel. All we're missing is a jolly roger flag and a big ol' barrel of grog. Arrrr!" Joker chimed in over the intercom, eliciting a strong eye roll from Sam.

"What have I told you about eavesdropping, asshole?" Sam exclaimed, bringing up Joker's laughing face on the vid screen of her omni tool.

"I've been pinging you for the last ten minutes and you didn't hear it because you were to busy flirting with the lovely miss Liara-"

"I was not flirting," Sam hissed, feeling her ears burn with embarrassment. "She asked for my help with something technical and-"

"Excuses, excuses, Sammy-"

"Hello, Joker. Lovely to see you again," Liara interrupted. Her annoyance was clearly apparent in her tone. "You haven't changed a bit I see."

"And I see you still find me incredibly obnoxious; good. The status quo has been maintained. I bet you secretly missed me."

_Sigh._

"Are we almost to the citadel, Joker?"

"Wow, can't a guy indulge in a little small talk once in a while?" he sighed dramatically. "Alright, alright. I get it. Everyone's super on edge, I'm sorry. But the good news is we're coming up on the relay now; ETA 10 minutes 'til docking, tops. I mean, assuming we've still got clearance to dock at the citadel and we don't end up waiting in traffic for two hours like some common peasant-"

"JOKER. Please?" Sam pleaded. "Please save it for later?"

"Alright, alright. Liara, if it's not too much trouble, can you go and try to stop Shepard from punching any more holes in my ship? Sam, meet me at the bridge after we jump the relay; we'll go straight to the Alliance Headquarters once we're docked."

"Sounds good, see you in a few," Sam closed the comm link and stole a glance at Liara. _Thanks a lot Joker. Just once I'd like to have a conversation with a female that didn't turn me into an awkward_, _stuttering mess._

_Though she is a lovely shade of blue…_

_Focus, Sam._

"I should go try and talk to Shepard," Liara said quietly, locking up the last of the tech into black boxes. She set up a hacking barrier around the mech before motioning for Sam to follow her out of the med bay. "You'd better get up to the bridge. I'm going to head upstairs to see if I can do some… damage control. It was good to meet you, Specialist Traynor; I look forward to working with you."

"We'll see, Dr. T'soni."

* * *

"This is so wrong," Samantha hissed. "We could get in so much trouble for this!"

"Be cool man; do you really want to wait in that huge line?" Joker hissed back, gesturing towards the cue of Alliance personnel that was stretching clear down the block from the Alliance Headquarters.

"Joker, without your leg braces you could break a leg with one wrong step! Is it really worth risking a compound fracture?!"

"Hey, I need a new set of them anyway; this way I get brand new R4 bracers and you don't have to waste six hours in the requisitions line because you're my temporary mobility assistant! It's win-win! OW. Watch the shoulder!"

"I'm sorry, you're heavier than you look," Sam grunted, pulling Joker's arm tighter across her shoulder. As they trudged down the line, Sam expected the other marines to glare at them or tell them to get in line like everyone else; to her surprise, some of the marines saluted them, and others clapped or cheered.

"See? We've got nothing to worry about; people love me. I'm the only person who doesn't seem to be negatively affected by my association with Commander Shepard."

"Yea, when your commanding officer punches out reporters on live television and works for a terrorist organization for a few months it doesn't tend to leave the best impression."

"It is waaaay more complicated than you can possibly imagine, Sam."

"Is it, Joker? It's Cerberus."

"Just… can we talk about this later please? The sooner we get our assignments and gear the sooner we can enjoy some downtime over at Purgatory. I think you and I have earned a drink."

"Or ten," Sam smirked, easing Joker into the chair in front of the assignments officer. He glanced up at the two of them coldly, and held out his hand. Joker held out his dog tags.

"Flight Specialist Jeffrey Moreau, you have been reassigned as the pilot of the SSV Normandy SR-2 at the request of Commander Shepard and the command of Admiral Hackett. Your requisition request form has been processed, and you may pick up your new equipment at the requisitions office through the door on the right," the officer droned, signing the transfer forms on his omni tool. He turned to Sam and she handed him her dog tags, which he scanned promptly. "One moment please; Comms Specialist Samantha Traynor, you have been assigned to the SSV Normandy SR-2 at the request and command of Admiral Anderson, along with the rest of the surviving retrofit crew. Your provisions will be waiting for you aboard the Normandy; any special requests must be processed through the requisitions office where they will be handled in order of application. Thank you. Dismissed."

"I hate that guy," Joker coughed.

"Just go get your leg braces. I need a drink. Meet you at Purgatory?"

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

_Why can't anything just go according to plan today?_

"Look, I'm sorry Liara but this is the best we could do on short notice. You're just going to have to make due until the next time you make port," Feron argued, dropping a box of external HDDs on the desk. Sam glanced around the XO office, counting at least a dozen vidscreen monitors and perhaps twenty separate processors, plus a rather complicated VI dock and archive.

"This is barely a third of what we left with, what the hell happened to the rest of it?" Liara snapped back. Sam awkwardly continued to run the cables across the right-hand wall, trying to ignore the amount of subtext that was present in Liara and Feron's constant bickering. Whatever they were _actually_ arguing about had nothing to do with the massive piles of tech that were now haphazardly scattered about the room.

"This is what I had in my apartment, the rest of it is in lockdown storage. Do you have any idea how many people are trying to access storage units right now? It'll be a week before I can even get the release forms processed! And no, I cannot get it done faster than that so don't even bother asking," the drell countered, crossing his arms across his chest. Sam watched him out of the corner of her eye, fascinated by the way that light seemed to glisten on his skin like scales on a lizard. His voice had a strange sort of growl to it, almost like the purr of an old engine._ I never thought I'd get to meet a drell._

_You never thought you'd meet Commander Shepard, either. Today has just been chock full of improbable things. What's next, a yahg? A bloody prothean?_

"Well damn it, Feron, what the hell do I pay you for then?!" Liara was almost shouting, and Sam desperately wanted to sneak out of the room to avoid getting caught in the verbal crossfire. When Liara had intercepted her on the way to Purgatory and requested that she give her a hand with installing her information broker suite into the former XO's office on the Normandy, Sam had assumed it wouldn't involve much more than linking up a top of the line terminal and possibly a VI assistant to EDI. _Simple tech geek stuff, right? How bad could it be?_ Instead, Sam found herself helping a somewhat standoffish drell drag thirty or so boxes up the cargo bay and into the elevators, each one filled to the brim with state of the art tech equipment.

"Heavy lifting, clearly. Who taught you how to pack storage boxes? They're all at least twenty pounds over weight!"

"We were in a bit of a hurry, in case you've forgotten! Weighing my carryon luggage wasn't exactly on my list of top ten priorities that afternoon! And another thing..."

Sam tried to throw all of her attention at the VI dock she was hooking up to the system, but it was more or less impossible; it's rather difficult to ignore two people shouting back and forth over your head. Suddenly, the device sprang to life, and a small VI drone poked itself out of the top of its dock. It spun its 'head' around a few times to scan the room before it took a quick scan of Samantha's dog tags.

"Happy to see you, Specialist Traynor," the drone chirped. Sam couldn't help but smile at the thing's cheerful demeanor.

"At least someone is," she sighed, unlocking the digital shackles that kept the drone secured in his blackbox. "Does Liara actually need my help setting all of this up, or did she just want to argue in front of witnesses?"

"Dr. T'soni appears to be under an unhealthy amount of stress, which would be detrimental to her concentration capacity. It is likely that the increased volume of her voice is a verbal expression of her emotional distress."

"Yes, everyone is stressed about the Reapers."

"No, it is much more likely that Commander Shepard is the primary source of Dr. T'soni's emotional distress."

"And what makes you say that?" Sam asked in a hushed voice as a curious smirk crept across her face. _This thing is awfully chatty and cheerful for an information drone. _

_I like it. I think I'll download its personality parameters for my VI tech._

"Dr. T'soni spends a significant amount of time in distress over Commander Shepard. Your ship computer, EDI, has informed me that Commander Shepard is the commanding officer of this vessel. Dr. T'soni often experiences emotional distress when Commander Shepard is in close proximity."

"And why is that?"

"Commander Shepard and Dr. T'soni-"

"_Are old friends who have gotten a little to good at pushing each other's buttons,_"Liara interrupted when she finally overheard the conversation going on between her digital secretary and the Normandy comms specialist. "Glyph, come here right now!" Sam stifled a laugh behind her hands as Liara scolded the little drone like a misbehaving puppy. Glyph took all of this in stride of course, never deviating from his chipper demeanor. Feron took the opportunity to throw his hands up in exasperation and stomp out of the room. It was just as well; when Sam checked her watch, she saw that they only had about thirty minutes left before the Normandy was scheduled to depart from the Citadel.

"Studies have shown that classical music can reduce stress levels," Glyph suggested, and immediately started playing an excerpt from Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

"Where in the galaxy did you find that thing?" Sam asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Liara sighed, sinking down into the bed at the end of the room. "I… I'm sorry you got caught in the middle of all that. I'm not actually mad at Feron…"

"…but you can't actually yell at the person who pissed you off?" Sam suggested. Liara let out a long sigh and nodded.

"Shepard is… well she's always been stubborn and frustrating, but she… she isn't… she didn't used to be so angry all the time."

"Considering recent circumstances, I can't say I'd fare much better."

"Hmm. I don't know about that. You don't strike me as the type of person who would headbutt a krogan."

"Okay, now that can't possibly be true. You're putting me on."

"Now why would I do that?" Liara asked genuinely. "You'd be surprised how little of the legend of Shepard is fictional. Sometimes it's easy to forget that she's a real person. Or was, once upon a time."

"Well, we could use the legend now, since the rest of us are decidedly more human. Err, I mean, that's a figure of speech…"

"Yes, that one I'm familiar with," Liara smiled; she had calmed down considerably, and only now did Samantha notice how frayed and exhausted the asari appeared. Dark circles hung below Liara's eyes, and she moved her limbs with visible effort, as if they were ten pounds heavier than they should have been. "Will Joker be upset at you for not meeting him?"

"Yes, but it's not like he made it to the bar either," Sam pulled up her email app, re-reading the flagged message from Alliance Command. "Shepard sent out our orders shortly after you intercepted me."

_To: SSV NORMANDY SR-2 CREW_

_From: COMMANDER SHEPARD, QUINN E. N7 OPERATIVE_

_Re: PRIORITY: PALAVEN_

_The Normandy has been chosen as the location for a war summit between the turians, salaries, and the krogan. The fifth fleet has been unable to retrieve the turian primarch_ _due to overwhelming reaper presence in the Apien Crest; the Normandy's stealth systems should circumvent this problem. All crew members are to return to the Normandy immediately. If you are not on board within the next three hours, we are leaving without you._

"She never was one for friendly correspondence," Liara said dryly. "At least she's stopped swearing like a krogan in official documentation."

"I get the impression that you two don't have a whole lot of personality traits in common."

"Sometimes I wonder if we have anything in common at all," Liara paused, biting her lower lip again. "Or had, I suppose. I don't really know her anymore. Or maybe I never did. I'm sorry this is all getting terribly informal. I'm not usually this emotional. It's just… it's been a long day. And a long six months..."

"I understand," Sam said, even though she knew that she didn't. "As much as I have enjoyed our chats, I really need to get some sleep before we reach Trebia." Liara didn't answer, but offered a small wave of recognition to Samantha's statement. _Alright, time to make my escape before someone else finds something for me to do._

Sam walked quickly to the sleeper pods, locked herself in, disabled all non-emergency alerts, and set an alarm. She became suddenly and painfully aware of how exhausted she was, and was growing more frustrated by the moment when she realized that she was almost too exhausted to sleep. Her head was swimming through thick fog, and she briefly considered giving up on sleep altogether. _No, you're going to be in charge of running the ground team's comms on Palaven. You need to be at a hundred percent if you're going to avoid getting your commanding officer killed._

_Commander Quinn Elizabeth Shepard._

_I am a member of the crew of Commander Fucking Shepard._

_And bloody fucking hell, she is terrifying._

She shifted about in the sleeper pod, wondering what life was going to be like in the 'real' military. Sam had gotten so used to the informality of R&D, she wasn't even sure if she remembered how to stand at attention properly… and Shepard was a notorious traditionalist when it came to running her ship. _Note to self; don't forget to keep an ear out for 'officer on deck.' At least I'll have a few second's warning before she's right behind me._ As Samantha's nerves finally began to settle down, she briefly considered trying to come to grips with her current situation now that they were out of immediate danger (for now) and now that she had her assignment. Her stomach lurched in protest and she immediately terminated this line of thinking, wiping little pin-pricks of tears from the corners of her eyes. She was suddenly stricken by an unbelievable and incomprehensible sense of distance and loneliness.

_I am so far from anywhere I can call home._

_Come on, Sam. Big girls don't cry._

She flipped through the audio files on her omni tool, looking for something to draw some comfort from. At last, she found the perfect thing.

_Well, not perfect, but it'll have to do._

A quiet british voice slowly eased Samantha into an uneasy, yet deep sleep.

[Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches…]

* * *

**Author's Notes**: Well, the semester is over and I'm back with a long one! Enjoy! Up next: Sam and Shepard's first real conversation. Are you excited? 'Cause I'm excited. Thank you for all of your reviews, favorites, and views, everyone. You're awesome.

The excerpts in brackets are from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


End file.
